


You knew who I was with every step that I ran to you

by Flip_wizard



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eye Trauma, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, M/M, like a little bit, nothing too graphic, post-160
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 17:43:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21378028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flip_wizard/pseuds/Flip_wizard
Summary: In the fallout of the apocalypse, Jon hurts.  Martin does what he can.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 8
Kudos: 157





	You knew who I was with every step that I ran to you

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've ever actually like finished and published. Hope y'all like it. Please be kind to me. I wrote this in like an hour and a half because I couldn't stop thinking about the fucking stupid finale. Anyway it's unbeta'd and barely edited so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ hope you enjoy.

In the month following the apocalypse, Jon is despondent. The only times Martin can get him out of bed are for the bathroom and the odd cup of tea when he can find the time between everything else going on. The wounds from where Jon had tried to tear out his eyes, his tongue, his throat, are mostly healed now, just a few more scars to add to his ever growing list. Martin doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to help. He can still remember walking into see Jon unconscious on the floor after he had sprinted back to their house when the storm clouds had looked less like condensed water vapor and more like closed eyes.

_ Martin was terrified. _

_ More than he had been in a very long time, though that may have had more to do with the lonely than any actual change in his life, but, regardless, he was scared. Which meant, when he opened the door to the safehouse he and Jon had been calling home for the past three weeks to see Jon sprawled out on the floor, papers scattered around him, he almost fainted himself from the sheer fear that shot through him. But he didn’t, instead he walked over to Jon and, with shaking hands, tried to shake him awake. When that didn’t work he started trying to call out his name, as well, though his voice was low and cracking and didn’t do much to wake him. So he settled on a slap, apologizing in advance for having to do it. _

_ He’s almost surprised when the slap wakes Jon immediately, almost forgets about the- whatever it is raging outside when he hears Jon’s confused muttering. But the fear comes flooding back into him when he actually gets a good look at Jon’s face, there’s blood, everywhere, there’s a slow stream of it dripping out of his nose, his eyes, his ears. And, underneath the blood, Martin can see what look like gouges in Jon’s skin, no, not gouges, scratches. Like Jon had been trying to tear his skin off, tear his eyes out. When he actually looks him in the eyes, Martin sees that one of Jon’s eyes is blown wider than the other and he is beyond worried. Before Martin can ask him if he’s okay, though, Jon becomes more cognizant, more aware of where he is, who he is. _

_ “Help me up,” he says, and his voice is bordering on frantic, he’s afraid, Martin realizes, well and truly afraid. Martin does not help him up, but Jon moves to the window anyway, and Martin is so caught up in the fear of it all that he doesn’t even process most of what Jon says until he hears him tell him to look at the sky- he thinks maybe he heard him blame himself for this, but he can’t be sure, can never be sure. _

_ “...It’s looking back,” and then Jon’s laughing, loud and crazed as he collapses in on himself. He keeps laughing, until his laughs turn to sobs and his rail thin body starts to convulse with the force with which he grieves. _

_ And Martin doesn’t know what to do, can’t understand anything that’s happening, but he needs to be near Jon, needs to know that he’s here, to be sure he’s not  _ alone _ , so he moves over to Jon and wraps his arms around him feeling the soul wrenching sobs more than actually hearing them. It takes minutes before Martin realizes that Jon’s speaking while he sobs, mumbling almost too quickly for martin to understand, but, with some focus, he does, and he almost wishes he couldn’t. _

_ “It’s all my fault Martin, oh god, I did this, I should have died Martin, why couldn’t I have just died,” and the words continue on but Martin is too sick to continue listening. _

_ He doesn’t want to let Jon go, but he needs to see the statement, needs to know what caused this. And when he finally extracts himself from Jon and makes his way to the discarded papers, when he finishes reading it, reaches the last line, he has to focus his entire being on not throwing up, on not losing himself in the rage and the grief of what this stupid fucking paper is. What Jonah Magnus has done, what he has  _ made _ Jon do. _

_ He rushes back to Jon and hug his body against his with a reinvigorated passion, and no matter how many times Jon shakes his head, he keeps telling him that this wasn’t his fault. _

He hasn’t been able to get ahold of Basira since the apocalypse started, and he can’t very well leave the safehouse without Jon to try and find her. So, for the past month, he has spent the majority of his time monster-proofing the safehouse; boarding up the windows and setting traps by the doors. Honestly, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he hopes beyond hope that they work, somehow, that they keep the two of them safe.

The latter portion of his time has been spent trying to get Jon to talk, he wants to understand what’s going on in that head of his, but Jon hasn’t done much talking since  _ the statement _ , so it’s mostly quiet in their tiny house.

The only thing Martin can really do is hold Jon as he lays in bed, unblinking eyes glued to the wall in front of him, so he does.

After the first two weeks of the apocalypse, surprisingly, things had mostly... settled down, if Martin had to describe it. The first fourteen days were filled with death and screams and terror, but now it’s almost as if everyone is over it, or as over the embodiments of fear one can be. So now he’s just stuck with the quiet and an increasingly lethargic Jon.

In the first few weeks Martin had been worried that Jon would starve, so he had offered to give him stories. But Jon had looked at him, his mouth spreading into the same manic grin that had stretched across his face on the first day, and said, “I don’t need stories anymore Martin, The Eye doesn’t need me. Nobody needs me anymore.” And then he had laughed until he cried. He hadn’t spoken since then, other than when he mouthed a ‘thank you’ at Martin when he brought him tea.

Martin had tried multiple times, unsuccessfully, to talk to Jon, to have a real conversation about everything that was happening, everything that had happened; but each time Jon would just stare steadfastly at the ground, ignoring him.

Since his last attempt at a conversation, he had been gently talking to Jon any chance he could get, whispering that this wasn’t his fault. Telling him that he loved him. Reminding him of the wonderful cow the two of them had seen when they first got in, smiling when he told Jon that she had made it, that when he listened closely enough he could hear her mooing reverberate through the fields. With each reassurance, Jon seemed to pay more attention, his previously unmoving limbs curling further into his body any time Martin spoke to him with kindness.

It all comes to a head a week after Martin starts his new attack. He’s sat at their little dining table, eating a protein bar he had been able to snag from the grocery store last time he had braved the journey, when Jon all but barrels through the door connecting it to their bedroom.

“What game are you playing Martin,” his voice is barely a rasp and his features look pained.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Martin replies, keeping his voice level.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about. Why are you being so nice to me? Why are you still here, still talking to me. I started the fucking apocalypse, Martin, why haven’t you left, I’m a monster,” his voice is edging on hysterical by his last word, his eyes blown wide in Martin’s direction- his pupils are finally the same size again, Martin notes.

“You’re not a monster Jon. And you didn’t start the apocalypse, Jona-” his voice is the same level softness he has adopted to talk to Jon, cut off by a loud outburst by Jon.

“No, don’t shift the blame, Martin. This is my fault, because I couldn’t figure this out, the avatar of  _ knowing _ and I couldn’t see this coming. My fault because I wasn’t strong enough to stop myself. My fault because I didn’t fucking die when I was supposed to die. My faul-” and Martin cuts him off this time, his practiced calm cracking slightly as the anger at Jonah bleeds in.

“Jon, this isn’t your fault,” Jon opens his mouth to interrupt again, but Martin lifts his finger in his direction,” No, Jon, just listen for a second. Please, just listen. None of this is your fault, you have to know that. You didn’t choose this, any of this. By god Jon, look at you, you nearly gouged your damn eyes out trying to not read Jonah’s statement. How could you have known any of what happened would have led to this,” Jon doesn’t look convinced and, after a second of thought, Martin understand,  _ Knows _ what will get through. Knows like he knows how good Jonah nose breaking under his fist will feel, knows like knows Jon’s love, like he knows his own. 

And, with a soft and steady breath, Martin looks at Jon, “If this is your fault then it’s my fault too,” Jon shakes his head at this, opening his mouth to rebut, “No, by your logic it’s your fault because Jonah manipulated you into meeting all of the avatars, and, if I hadn’t joined Peter, you would have never went to The Lonely to get me back. Look Jon, this isn’t your fault as much as it isn’t mine. We don’t blame the trigger when the gun fires, just as we don’t blame the bullet. We blame the person firing. That’s whose fault this is, Jonah Magnus, the man who pulled the trigger, the man who  _ forced _ you to speak the apocalypse into being,” he spits Jonah’s name out like a curse and looks Jon in the eyes, daring him to deny him.

The room is silent for a few long moments before Jon lets out a wet laugh, “How can you just say that, just say what I need to hear?”

“Because it’s the truth,” Marin says matter-of-factly, smiling loosely at Jon. Jon looks like he doesn’t believe him, but he smiles anyway, a real smile, not the manic one that had twisted his featured for the past month. He nods his head minutely and mouths something that Martin thinks may be okay before tears start to fall from his eyes.

Martin gets up and makes his way to Jon, hugging him tightly against his chest, and, for the first time in weeks Jon cries into him. And as Martin rubs circles into his back, he forgets about the apocalypse, just for a second all there is him and Jon. And in this moment Martin knows that they’ll make it through this. Knows that they will get their happy ending, Jonah Magnus and fear gods be damned.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this fic lmao, hope you liked it.


End file.
